


Gentian Blue

by mochawhip



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochawhip/pseuds/mochawhip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue gentians for saddened love and white dittanies for your passion. For the immortal and invincible artist, gravity would always give mercy in his footsteps. AU setting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2007. While this thing is as old as cheese by now, it's the only full-scale/multi-chapter story I've ever done for a single idea. I still get heartwarming responses from readers saying they've returned to singing or painting after reading this. Sparking inspiration in people for art they originally abandoned is a wonderful feeling, so I've decided to add this here as well.

A great rush of stained tea smoothed out the scratchy surfaces in his throat and released the stress on his vocal cords. He coughed, gurgled the liquid until it turned bitter, and then gulped everything down below. A few fingers were used to massage his jaw loose, then down to his jugular to ease the stress.

“ _Fecit locutus est_ ,” Roxas said, pronouncing the old language off his dry tongue. He picked up his score and rubbed his eyes. It was too late to be singing Bach’s preaching. “ _Fecit locutus est_.”

He dropped the score back onto the bed and practiced his memory. “ _Omnes, omnes_ ,” he sung to the wall. Then to the window: “ _Gloria parti..._ ”

It was in that moment when the echoes of his voice swerved to man next door. It was strange at first because the man sported a splattered apron and droplets of blue paint on his hands and face. Roxas observed him through the window, watching the man pace his room with three paintbrushes sticking out of his mouth in a worrisome jiggle. Within the year that the man had taken residence in the neighboring house, Roxas figured that he was a college student, an artist in the making, and that his fellow buddies with whom he shared the rent were the ones responsible for the occasional parties and loud music. Sometimes he believed the houses were built too closely together for comfort, but the artistic paces of the man revealed no threat.

Roxas took another great swig of tea in such a movement that it caught the attention of his neighbor. The man chewed the tips of the brushes, gave a wave and concluded his midnight greeting with a thumbs-up on Roxas’ singing. Roxas shook his head and gave in. He released the hatches and pushed his window open. The man did the same.

“Young and fresh-minded teens such as yourself should be asleep at this hour, shouldn’t they?” his neighbor said through a mouthful of brushes.

Roxas leaned on the windowsill and circled his shoulders. It was ridiculous that their houses were built so close. “I would but extra practice for choir is more important. And your friends make so much noise that sleep would be impossible anyway.”

The man plucked the brushes out of his mouth and laughed. “Dear old Demyx says that it’s not worth playing unless it’s loud and proud. And as physics majors, Xigbar and Xaldin have rights to some insanity.”

Roxas watched the blue gentians rustle against the August breeze on the trellis below his window. “What year are you guys?”

“We’re all in our third year. We go way back to high school. You?”

“Just started my third year of high school.”

“Excited?”

“Not really.” He turned to the clock again. “I guess I should sleep.”

“You do that then.” The man reached for the windowpanes and winked again. “And a very good night to...?”

“Roxas.”

His neighbor took a painted finger and tapped it against his forehead. “Axel. Pleasure’s all mine.”

 

\---

 

Living was too tough in those modern times when the well-being of the children was placed after finances and international affairs. Such instances compelled his parents to stick him and his siblings in a tiny two-story house sixty miles away in a town with nothing more than a good school, a good college, and an excellent ice cream parlor. His parents worked furiously in the city to keep the money even in fifty-story buildings, and what little money was left in the end was dropped in a carefully-watched account to ensure that all four of them were comfortable and safe in their small home with only elderly people and college students around for parental supervision. They were fortunate that the twin girls were studious and creative and the twin boys were strong and musical. Roxas only needed two more years of studies and straining his baritone voice, and then he would be free but stuck in the same place perhaps.

“We need more food. And tea.”

Sora tapped his foot on the waxed floor tiles of the school. “You’ll blow all of Dad’s hard-earned money on packets of leaves. Why do you need to drink so much?”

“It helps my voice from getting shot,” Roxas explained to his elder twin.

“Or you could quit singing,” Sora joked.

“Only if you quit soccer.”

“Not a chance.” Sora waved at their sisters down the hall, who still had three years left. “Fine, we’ll go shopping for your leaves.”

Kairi waved her perfect test papers in Roxas’ face on the way to the market and poked fun at how she was taking twelfth grade math and he was too busy stuffing his nose in music books instead of math books. Sora picked at clumps of mud on his cleats before entering the store and Namine whispered one of her story ideas into Roxas’ ear in front of the milk. Roxas threw his tea boxes at Sora to test his reflexes until Kairi threw one at Roxas and told him to stop. Namine only laughed and ushered them to the check-out line so they could go home and eat and if they got home early, maybe Mom would call.

On the way to their tiny two-story house, Sora tripped and nearly smashed all of the tea boxes on the sunset-streaked sidewalk. Roxas caught him in a headlock only to be deceived when his sisters grabbed the paper bags and ran off, taking his tea hostage. They finally made it to the kitchen just in time for Mom’s phone call. Namine told her that the townsfolk were nice, Kairi proudly declared her latest grades and how the boys were being silly again, Roxas said that the choir teacher was impressed, and Sora, being the oldest, ended the conversation by assuring her that everything was overall good.

Roxas swung his feet nervously under the kitchen table, trying to remind his reflection in his bowl of chicken soup that everything was indeed good and that he was only apprehensive about learning his new part, but the rhythms of his heartbeat told him otherwise.

 

\---

 

It became a habit to arrange evening discussions with his too-close neighbor when he needed someone to knock some clarity and reality into his head and onto the notes of his scorebook. It was only a month into the school year and already he was feeling the strains of a future he didn’t even know about. Axel was the closest thing to a parent when Roxas needed the words of an elder, even if Axel did leave the impression that he was just as insane as his physics major friends.

“It comes with the occupation of an artist,” Axel explained, leaning on the windowsill with one arm and tapping his forehead again with the other. “Only so many of us are crazy enough to sit all day and paint. Did you know that Van Gogh licked his paintbrushes?”

Roxas tried to focus on the music sheets. “And do you follow his example?”

“Can’t say I’m too inclined to do that.”

“Really.”

He was forced to turn away his music when Axel suddenly jumped up and laughed. “You don’t believe me! Woe is me, for your responses are so cold toward this emerging artist. Have some compassion. Aren’t all singers supposed to be sympathetic?”

“Well, sorry to say that this singer isn’t so nice,” Roxas sighed. He dropped the music onto the floor and rubbed his eyes. “I just don’t get art.”

Looking back on that evening, Roxas realized that it would have probably been better if he made no comment on art whatsoever, because keeping quiet would not have given Axel the obligation to climb out of his window and down the vine-covered trellis and then climb up the trellis underneath Roxas’ window. Looking back further, he also realized that he shouldn’t have just stood there and watched in astonishment.

“The hell are you doing?”

“Gonna teach you art, what else?” said Axel. “Hope you don’t mind at this hour. I’ll be quick.”

“No wait-” Roxas started, but it was already too late to go back and stop Axel from ever leaving his house. Two steps later brought Axel to a two-story fall worthy of a fractured leg and Roxas close to smashing his head against his windowsill.

 

\---

 

He knew that Sora would twist the situation into something terrible, but flowers were the least he could do for an idiot climbing the side of the house. At least his twin was kind enough to help him pick out a small bouquet of white dittanies and keep his imaginative mouth shut about a secret girl.

Roxas visited Axel at their usual window rendez-vous, but this time he was the one to climb the trellis up to Axel’s room successfully.

“What a show-off,” his neighbor said, hunched over crutches and weighed down by a tan wrapping on his ankle. “Not fair, man. Once I’m healed, I’ll go to your window and strangle you myself.”

“Like this was all my fault.” Roxas dropped the dittanies on Axel’s nightstand and observed the room. One could say that it was so messy that it was artistic, with stacks of canvases and newsprint in the corners and paintbrushes and pastels by the bucket on the bookshelves. On the side of the window was an easel and painting in the works.

Axel wobbled over to his bed. “I’m just glad I didn’t break an arm. Man, these are exhausting.”

“How long will you need them?”

“Not long. A week maybe. It’s not that serious.” Axel tossed the crutches onto the tarp-covered carpet. “So did you want to talk or are you just here to give me flowers and kiss me goodnight?”

Roxas wished his neighbor didn’t laugh at the face he made. “I’m sure the physics geeks are crazy enough to do that for you.”

“Probably, but I bet I’m crazier than all of them combined.”

“Yeah?” He leaned in at the canvas on the easel and saw a smooth combination of blotches of flowers.

“I told you, it’s an artist thing.” Axel grabbed the small bouquet and waved them dramatically. “Being such is a constant state of dissatisfaction! We draw and paint and write and sculpt but once it’s done, we still shake our heads in shame because we could have done better.”

“What a terrible way to live,” said Roxas. He took the flowers back and frowned at the freed petals on the floor.

“And yet, at the same time, it’s the most wonderful thing.” He reached out for the flowers again but Roxas stepped out of arm’s reach. “It gives you the most intense and heart-shattering passion of all. You’re creating something and you can’t stop because it’s like you’re in a trance.” A wink. “You follow?”

“You really are insane.”

Axel laughed and stood up again. “Aren’t you a singer? That’s an art form; you should know that rushing feeling when you’re singing away.”

“Then I guess,” Roxas stated, now climbing out of the window after he found an empty bucket for the dittanies, “that means I don’t have any rush or passion in me. Just dull, old me.”

All he wanted was to curl into bed and hope tomorrow would pass by quicker than yesterday, but within the month he knew Axel, he had figured out that Axel always had to have the last word that wasn’t supposed to slow his thoughts and time but did anyway.

Axel leaned over him above the trellis and said with that paint-slick smile of his, “A life without any rush or passion is so much worse than a life too full of it.”

 

\---

 

Things were bugging him when they weren’t supposed to and for some reason it compelled him to sit next to Namine on the floor and try to see through her pencil sketches of nonexistent animals and handwriting that resembled an ocean wave. Roxas felt that everything he denied before was creeping back on him, thus it was best to discover the root of the problem and solve it before it became too distracting.

“If you paid attention to Dad when he was reading us children’s books, you would understand better,” Namine said, rolling her eyes.

“He always read the same thing to us, though,” Roxas argued. He flipped through his sister’s storyboards, weighted down with crayons and markers. She would be something great like her twin sister, who would be something great like their eldest brother. And here was Roxas in the middle with nothing but a few strings in his throat tuned well enough to produce a few good notes.

Namine plucked her drawings from his hands. “Maybe when I’m famous from making children’s books and cartoons, I’ll call you up and you can sing for some of the characters.”

“A good voice isn’t much these days.” He turned away at the pictures of dragonflies ascending toward the stars.

“Why not? It’s all you do these days. You obviously love it.” She pulled out more papers with more flying creatures. “Go to the city, get a job at the theater, and sing all the big parts that’ll have the ladies swooning for days.”

Roxas laughed and shook his head. “I’m not sure if I’m cut out for stage life.”

“Well, at least it’s a life worth having.” Namine tucked the papers back into their files and smiled. “Right?”

 

\---

 

A blurry future was only natural for young adults his age, but it could only get so tolerable when everyone else looked clear and confident while staring straight ahead. He had his music books and his vocal cords – didn’t the biggest stars start small and unseen?

Axel was humming something terribly out of tune and twiddling a blue paint tube in his hands. Roxas was convinced the annoyance next door would eventually bend his pitch pipe out of tune.

“Can you shut it for just a moment, please? I’d like to sing my part in the right key.”

“Do forgive this unworthy soul, Master Roxas.” A few more paint tubes went flying around his neighbor’s room. “Please spare me any harsh punishments and I’ll prove my worth.”

“Be quiet for a few minutes and your life shall be spared.” Roxas let his breath race through one of the square holes in the silver instrument and mimicked the note. He sung out his lines, not too loudly in case Axel was listening too intently and not too softly so that he couldn’t find himself. With two swigs of tea and a cough later, he told himself he was finished and nearly did not notice the rush of blood that suddenly escalated through his veins.

He turned to the window to see Axel leaning on his own windowsill and eating his paintbrushes again. “Beautiful, man. You almost got me crying in my expensive paints.”

“What a shame.” But he was showing a new smile anyway and looking back, it wasn’t so bad.


	2. two

Roxas had a small school concert that went by without incident though he certainly didn’t mind the little smile that stubbornly plastered itself onto his face afterwards. Kairi hugged him the moment he stepped off the stage and Sora messed his hair. Perhaps Namine was the proudest of them all for the instant they got home, she called Mom and demanded that Roxas sing a scale to her. He did in his airy baritone and was rewarded with heartbeats when Mom gave him praise.

Axel was less enthusiastic because if two people were friends for two months, it was a rule that they were supposed to invite each other to their concerts.

“How was I supposed to know you liked church hymns?” Roxas said. His necktie flew into a corner or under his desk in hopes of remaining hidden for the next few months.

“It’s music. _Music_ , Roxas.” Axel waved his arms dramatically and rained purple paint. “Music is art. It’s inspiring. You could’ve landed me with a brilliant idea, but no! Once again this poor artist must fend for himself. You hate me.”

“Absolutely, totally, and one hundred percent detest every fiber of your being.” Roxas tucked away his tuxedo and kicked the necktie further under the bed. He went back to the windowsill and plucked a few invading blue gentians from the trellis. “Let me see your painting.”

Axel plucked it from the easel and held it in view from his window. Roxas was no poet but he almost wanted to say that the flowers were dancing in the ocean scenery. The wind over the waves was invisible but Roxas could easily see that it was carrying the flowers farther than he had ever imagined possible.

“Very nice.”

“Naturally; I painted it!” Axel dodged the sudden attack of plucked gentians, scolded Roxas for murdering Mother Nature, and with a wink, wished him a good night.

Roxas tossed and turned that night, trapped between his bedsheets, wondering where and how anyone could obtain such drive in his life. It was too late to turn back when the realization crept up his spine and electrocuted his nerves in an envious rage.

 

\---

 

They liked to think that in their tiny two-story house, Sora was the strangest of the bunch. He had the brute strength of a soccer player in his legs but was delicate enough in his arms to make chocolate cakes for his sisters. He explained to Roxas while swirling a bowl of frosting that something physical and breathtaking was in his future.

“College?” asked Roxas.

“You know that’s for our sisters.” He smacked a thick layer onto the cake. “How come the girls in our family are the smart ones?”

“I don’t get it either. Perhaps we should spare our parents the money by not going to college.” Roxas scrubbed a measuring cup clean in the sink. The drain gobbled up the mix of water and chocolate and gurgled back at him. “Maybe I’ll move to the city and join the theater.”

“Dad would definitely support you on that. He’s always at the playhouse.” Sora drew a face on top of the cake. “Think about it! You can sing your heart out for the rest of your life. That would be greatest thing.” He called for his sisters and wiped a frosted finger on Roxas’ cheek.

 

\---

 

Axel was convinced that he smelled a baking cake in the oven that afternoon and demanded his share for being like a brother to his neighbor, but Roxas was fed up with the constant production of beautiful paintings next door. He did not hide his scowl at the display of seabirds above a transparent ocean and kept his vocal chords rigid as stone that night.

But Axel always had to have the last word. “Something’s troubling you.”

Roxas made a move to close his window. “I’m just tired.”

But he forgot that Axel’s ankle was perfectly healed, and when he returned to his room a few minutes later, Axel was passing saliva into his pitch pipe.

“I’ve always wanted one of these,” he said, but was given disappointment when Roxas swiped it from his grasp.

“Leave.”

“Not until I teach you art.”

Roxas placed the pitch pipe back onto the desk, perhaps a little forcefully. “I told you, I don’t get art.”

“And that’s why I’m here to remedy that problem. You think you can find the motivation to be singing on stage without understanding art?”

Axel was also too good at closing arguments and digging the knife into his ribs further. Five minutes later found Roxas laying on the floor and Axel staining graphite onto white paper.

“You done?” The ceiling was mocking his boredom and the strain in his neck.

“Almost.” The pencil made a few more marks and then completed its work. “Now you can look.”

It was almost a terrible reminder to see his portrait because in the two months that they had known each other, Axel was already able to precisely draw the long look in Roxas’ eyes. His gaze was directed at the ceiling but Axel somehow knew that his focus wished to be elsewhere at something bigger.

“Man.” Roxas flopped back to the floor. “I hate artists.”

“‘Oh, Axel, you’re such an incredible artist! Thank you so much!’ ‘Oh, no problem, Roxas. You’re welcome. Anytime.’” Axel scribbled his signature in the corner and placed the drawing on the nightstand. “Tch, singers. Always such high-maintenance.”

He ruffled Roxas’ hair anyway and threw gentians into Roxas’ room while descending the trellis.

 

\---

 

Art was making more sense to him by the time fall took over. He did not want to admit that its impact draped his voice in silk or made the sunset on the walk home look richer no matter how many times Axel poked his ribs and told him to confess already.

“Wanna come over here?” Axel stopped chewing his paintbrush when Roxas gave him a look. “I swear, we won’t beat you up and take your money. Xigbar and Xaldin might say creepy things to you, but they’re cool. Honest.”

Roxas was still slightly convinced that he would end up coming home with a black eye and bloody lip anyway, but forgot about it when Axel took his hands and hoisted him through the window.

The best word he could think of to describe Demyx was bubbly. He was the man responsible for the music playing across the hall from Axel’s room, and from a first impression, Roxas almost doubted his dream of becoming a conductor.

“I’ve wanted to be up in front of an orchestra ever since I was five,” Demyx claimed, sinking into the brown armchair. Xigbar chuckled at that and assured Roxas that he did nothing to the glass of milk and chocolate chip cookies offered.

“Last year he said he wanted to since he was six,” he said to Roxas. Roxas remembered politeness then and tried not to stare at the long scar and eyepatch on the man’s face.

Demyx threw a cookie at Xigbar, who caught it between his teeth. “Go sniff some chemicals.”

“We’re nothing but modest physics geeks,” said Xaldin. He took a seat on the living room floor. “We only want to blow up the world, nothing more.”

“Sure.” Demyx tapped his left fingers on the armrest in some sort of musical arrangement. “Roxas, right? You should’ve seen Xaldin’s hair in high school. What a punk.”

Xaldin’s protests and tossing of cookies could not stop them. Axel pulled out a hardcover yearbook from the bookshelf and drew everyone around him. It reminded Roxas of when Dad would read to him and his three siblings, but this time he was surrounded by three possibly mental college students.

“Remember Tifa?” Axel sat next to Roxas on the couch and pointed at a picture in the book. “I’m still amazed you came out alive, Demyx.”

“Aw, don’t make fun of her. She was sweet.” Demyx continued his tapping.

“Here’s Xaldin,” Axel said, pointing to a new one. He leaned in closer to show Roxas and it was almost too close like their houses. “What a ladies’ man. And here’s the beautiful me.”

Roxas leaned in a bit closer and frowned at the image. “You didn’t have your face tattoos then?”

“No, but _someone_ ,” and Axel firmly directed his sight on Demyx, who suddenly stopped his tapping, “just had to go clubbing with a friend and ended up getting that friend so drunk that he stumbled into a tattoo parlor and passed out right on the table, unfortunately just after demanding a tattoo.”

Roxas nearly choked on his milk. “Man, you suck.”

“Bam!” said Xigbar. He made a gun noise between his teeth. “The kid’s got’cha.”

“Hey, at least they look cool,” Demyx defended, resuming his tapping.

“I’ve would’ve ripped off your nuts if they were something else.” Axel laughed and threw a pillow before continuing his book tour. “Grumpy mister Saix is that one and this is Luxord. That guy still owes me money.” His finger paused at the next picture.

“That Marluxia?” asked Xaldin.

“Yeah,” Axel sighed. “Larxene, Lexaeus, and Zexion, too.”

“Forever rest their souls.” Xigbar scratched at his scar.

“Something happen to them?” Roxas asked.

“Car crash,” said Axel. “Marluxia and Larxene got a little too excited on the thought of graduating and had a few too many drinks with Lexaeus and Zexion. Saix was probably the only one sober enough to drive home but Marluxia was always too persistent.”

“Saix’s got a fat scar between his eyes and I lost an eye and nearly had my jaw broken off,” Xigbar said through a mouthful of cookie. “Remember you wear your seatbelt, kid.”

Roxas had the opportunity to leave their shared house through the front door, even though he would still have to climb up his window to get back to his room. Axel showed him the door and dropped a plastic bag of cookies into his hands.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know how to react to that.”

“Yeah, life sucks like that sometimes.” Axel ruffled his hair again and it felt much closer than their windowsills. “But, being the good friend I am, you’re more than welcome to talk to me if life takes a bite out of you.” He tapped his forehead with a finger. “I’ll be there for ya, you know?”

“You sound like a pansy.” Roxas laughed anyway and sealed the promise into his chest without realizing it until it was already firmly enclosed between his ribs.

 

\---

 

“No. Absolutely not. Never.”

Kairi’s scowl greatly resembled their mother’s. “No one asked you.”

“It’s _Riku_ ,” Roxas stressed. He ground a piece of bread crust between his molars. “He’s messed up in the head.”

“You only hate him because he punched you in elementary school,” said Sora. He dropped a plate of food in front of his twin and ignored the soft comment that if the teacher hadn’t intervened, he would have won the fight.

“It’s my choice,” Kairi declared. “What if I hated Selphie and you started dating her?”

“That’s different.”

“Is not.”

“Eat, Roxas,” said Namine, and she stuffed a piece of broccoli into his protesting mouth.

 

\---

 

“Is not.”

“Shut up.” Roxas threw his score onto the bed. “He may be Sora’s best friend but he’s still questionable.”

“Man, you do hold grudges. _Questionable?_ ” Axel spun around on his stool and rolled its wheels to the window. As usual there were paintbrushes projecting from his mouth and pockets. “Can’t wait to see your reaction when he knocks her up.”

Roxas was speechless for a minute and rather resembled a fish, but let it drop and ended the conversation with a simple “You’re sick.”

“Only trying to lighten you up a bit.” Axel stretched his arms out in a theater-like gesture. “And some day,” he preached with a palette in hand, “you shall find a woman that sweeps you off your feet and takes you by a storm of love and passion that you can’t believe you lived without before.”

“And who’s your lady?”

“The lovely Galatea.”

“Who?”

The paintbrush in his teeth fell when Axel laughed. “I’m kidding, man. Greek legend. A young gentleman carved a marble statue and was so in love with it that the almighty gods,” and he raised his arms again, “gave the statue life. Or something. I’ve been waiting three years for that to happen to me, but I guess they’re too busy at the moment.”

 

\---

 

For the longest time it had always been porcelain and streaked with gray. Now, as he sung in his proud baritone voice, that emptiness began to throb and it was the greatest throbbing emptiness for which he could have ever hoped. The veins between his ribs were enriched with life but still had the craving for more. He could sing and learn and there would still be room for more knowledge the next day. His lips were open to the general audience but his eyes were stuck on Axel in the back, who seemed awfully determined to make Roxas mess up through funny faces.

That emptiness stung a little when Axel snuck out the moment the concert ended but the satisfaction did not fade. He only scolded Axel a little by the time he reached his windowsill.

“And our young hero has finally understood the meaning of art. It is not the art itself, but how the art makes the viewer react. The viewer can love the piece or hate the piece, but it is still art so long as the people have an emotional reaction to it.”

“Axel,” Roxas said, exasperated. He formally tucked away the necktie this time. “You would have saved me a lot of trouble if you just told me that the day we met.”


	3. three

Words were gone from him, his throat dried from not enough art and life and knowledge, his vocal strings strung too tightly for comfort, his lips cracked white and bloody red and begging for moisture. Namine told him to rest, Kairi told him to sleep, and Sora told him to finish the million tea boxes they got. He was fortunate enough to have Axel as a friend, who had so many words that it was a miracle his tongue had not yet caught fire.

“What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!”

Roxas leaned over his windowsill and frowned at the form underneath. “Keep your damn voice down; I don’t want my siblings to barge in and ask why there’s a madman under my window.”

“But it’s Shakespeare!” Axel began to climb the trellis that was almost too convenient like their houses. “How can one so easily let his words pass over his head like they meant nothing?”

“Never read him.” Roxas locked the pitch pipe between his lips and produced a C sharp. “What brings you here tonight?”

“Just visiting,” he said. Axel flopped down onto the bed. “You finish all your homework like a good student?”

“I also brushed my teeth and took my shower and made sure to scrub behind the ears. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

“Already have, thanks.”

Roxas picked up his music and switched between singing and telling Axel to minimize the flow of words. Axel just stared at him from the bed with that strange little curve on his lips, and Roxas was unsure if he was pleased or annoyed by giving a free concert. The throbbing emptiness under his ribs returned at full scale then and he knew that something had to be added or his torso would collapse.

The moment he stored away his music, Axel claimed that his fingers were itching and Roxas found himself on the floor again. He stared up at Axel (still on his bed) and watched how his friend’s eyes become enchanted with energy.

“If you want to do theater stuff, I take it you need to have some acting skills.”

“Probably.” The ceiling was boring again so he closed his eyes. “I figure they’ll take me in for my singing and I can work some background stuff until I get the hang of it. Heck, I might even change my mind within the next year or so.”

“You might,” said Axel. He observed Roxas’ face for a second and sketched another line. “But I like the theater idea.”

“Would you see my shows?” asked Roxas, eyes still shut.

“Each and every one. Twice.” Axel dropped the finished sketch onto his friend’s face and smiled when an annoyed groan emerged. “You’re quite the muse, Roxas.”

Roxas removed the paper and caught sight of the new smile on Axel’s face. The emptiness went ablaze with fulfillment for a brief second and he wanted to think it was fate but that would be too convenient.

 

\---

 

Families could be too close sometimes and Roxas was convinced that his sisters had a nose able to sniff out emotional changes.

“Look at him there, sighing,” Kairi said, hunched over the kitchen table and shooting sharp eyes across it. “Men always deny and deny but they can’t hide it forever.”

“Give it a rest already,” groaned Roxas.

“It’s only fair since you bugged me about Riku,” she defended. Namine nodded in agreement and Sora tried to hide his laughter in his potatoes.

“And he’s still a jerk.” Roxas picked up his fork and stabbed a heart-shaped strawberry. “I’m not looking for anyone now.”

“He’s too busy making sweet music to his art or whatever,” Sora commented, and earned a kick under the table for it.

“Kinda have been for a while,” said Roxas, but no one heard it because his mouth was muffled with heart-shaped strawberries.

 

\---

 

He thought he could get away with Axel simply being his elder. Axel could have been the person to look up to for guidance toward a blurred future when his parents weren’t available. He could have been the brother to share amusements and troubles of growing into a young adult. Above all, he could have been the friend for whom he never asked or imagined or prayed but was blessed with anyway.

But at the same time, there was something incredible about Axel that was beyond a parent and brother and friend, and as terrifying as the reality was, Roxas had never been so grateful. For once, the future had a blazing color and was no longer the whitewashed porcelain hidden underneath.

Whatever it was, he wanted Axel’s drive, his passion, his artistic enhancements that would maybe, just maybe, fill his ribs and allow him to be whole and satisfied.

 

\---

 

Demyx was making sweet music in the crisp winter air when Axel opened his window that Sunday afternoon. Roxas watched him take as few steps as possible through the snow and shook his head when Axel swore at the icicles on the trellis. The gentians were gone now but they would be back in time for spring’s rebirth.

Axel thanked him with a bow once he successfully made it through his neighbor’s window. He reclaimed his spot on Roxas’ bed and the emptiness glowed golden in his dimly lit room.

“Can’t wait for spring,” said Axel, taking the mug of hot chocolate from Roxas. “Snow scenes are fun to paint but white can only be so interesting for so long.”

“Do you go outdoors to paint flowers?”

“Not usually, but I always go out to paint the first ones I see in spring.” He made a face at his drink. “You actually put marshmallows in here?”

“If you don’t like them, then give them to me,” said Roxas, moving his mug into his right hand.

“Hey, I don’t want your dirty fingers in my hot chocolate.”

“Yours probably have paint and snow on them. That’s worse.”

“Don’t insult art and Mother Nature all at once,” Axel laughed, leaning back with the mug out of reach. Roxas threatened to punch him in the ribs and Axel threatened to spill the drink, icky marshmallows and all, all over the bedsheets.

They eventually met a compromise with Axel dunking his own fingers into his chocolate to fish out the marshmallows and dropping the sloppy substance into Roxas’ mug. It was getting late and his voice needed sleep if he wanted to regain his words, but he kept Axel talking about his art and passion and search for Galatea, and it was the most beautiful thing.

The craving returned at its final maximum and never before had Roxas wanted that artistic drive so deeply in his porcelain veins. He set the empty mugs on his desk with almost shaking hands and drank in everything his friend said about the life of snow. It was fast-fleeting and sharp to the touch but too sleek and beautiful to not be adored. Everything was peaceful in the snow and although it appeared to be empty, there was life underneath its blanket – little animals sleeping the snow out and tiny saplings waiting for the sun’s melt.

Roxas lost it there and decided right then to embrace the rhythmic throbbing between his ribs so long as his passion was there to keep it beating.

He had no words to express it, so he simply leaned forward and surrendered his entire being to a single touch of Axel’s lips that had a touch of melted ice.

 

\---

 

Ten or fifteen or however many minutes later, Roxas was in the most perfect mess and it was beautiful. Ten or fifteen minutes ago, he certainly did not expect to be greeted back with a huge mouthful of chocolate-thickened spit and calloused hands crawling up his spine. He went with it anyway, thinking that maybe the extra marshmallows made him sleepy and now he was dancing through the clouds in dreamland. Ten or fifteen minutes later, however, he was still in the same place and Axel was still making invisible words along his collarbone and driving the nerves in his spine crazy.

Axel chewed his bottom lip numb a bit more and finally released his mouth to say, “Un-fucking-believable.”

Roxas frowned and rolled them over on the bed. He stared down at Axel and found it strange that he didn’t feel strange connecting their beating chests; didn’t feel strange that there was actually a rhythm between his ribs. “That’s all you have to say after this whole thing?”

“Pretty much.” At least he looked content. “You seriously blew me away. And here I was thinking I was just getting more insane each day.”

“Whatever,” said Roxas, just wanting Axel to shut up with his words and kiss him again to make sure it was real. He parted his lips and let Axel invade to steal the air straight from his wheezing lungs. A pair of hands molded his shoulders in the sweetest squeezes and he couldn’t help but sigh under the blissful weight of it all. Axel stared at him in that moment, getting that look in his eyes, and Roxas stared back in hopes of reflecting it in his own pupils.

Axel whispered more Shakespeare or something into his ear but the throb was too loud for Roxas to pay attention. He still needed his sleep, so he led Axel to the windowsill and kissed him goodnight. Axel had the last word by declaring that the moon’s cerulean blue reflection on the snow was the same as his eyes. Roxas went to bed that night knowing that he understood art but artists would forever remain a mystery to him. Even then, he had a new smile, knowing that it was okay after all.

 

\---

 

Three weeks later brought the holidays. Three weeks later Roxas felt like a new man in the same skin or something poetic like that. Their parents greeted them with a humongous embrace and checked the tiny two-story house to make sure that the boys’ rooms weren’t too messy and there was enough nutrition in the kitchen. They would stay for a few days and celebrate through presents and elaborate dinners.

His mother fixed the new scarf around his shoulders and complimented him on his handsome face.

“Has anything new happened since we last called?” she asked in all smiles.

“Not much,” he said, but it couldn’t hurt to add, “I’ve – we’ve made friends with the neighbors.”

“The elderly couple next door? They’re sweet.”

“Yeah, them.”

 

\---

 

He counted the days down feverishly until Axel returned from his parents’ house. When he heard a tap on his window, he threw open the hatches and nearly smacked Axel on the forehead when he pushed the window out. Axel probably would have made some smart comment about head trauma, but Roxas sucked in any words forming in his mouth before they released. He tugged on his neighbor’s coat and all but dragged him inside.

“Missed you, too, dear,” Axel managed before getting attacked again. He batted at Roxas’ hands, which were getting a little too violent for the new scarf around his neck. “Don’t ruin the goods.”

 

“Sorry.” Roxas backed off for a moment to observe his appearance. “It’s nice.”  
Suddenly Axel was rummaging through his pockets. “Wait for it, wait for it. There we go.” He produced a circular disk nestled between his gloves and gently placed it in Roxas’ palm. “Just a little thing for you.”

It was little but its image was almost too huge for Roxas’ eyes and empty chest. It was a standard pitch pipe but with little swirls engraved into the sleek silver and the notes carefully carved in cursive. The top was simple and to the point: it presented his own name engraved with a curly line underneath. _Roxas_.

He sung almost madly that night, switching between different keys for different songs and kissing his passion because the emptiness surged with more power than the universe had. A gasp escaped his lips – he now had that mesmerizing and unstoppable rush in his life. His enchanted eyes blessed him with visions upon the stage bellowing out his baritone voice to a sophisticated crowed below. Then when he finished, the audience threw cheers and roses, but his focus was on Axel in the front row, back again for the second time as he promised, wearing a tuxedo and proud grin of his.

Axel bragged that once they became famous for their hands and vocals, he would take him to the moon, and Roxas couldn’t wait.

 

\---

 

The choir students had the chance to make it big in their school’s tiny play. Roxas had wrinkled his script so much that the pages were curled. He was unsure if it was nervousness or a chip in his confidence. The lack of clarity in him was almost disturbing. He scratched at his chest in hope of reviving the drive he had just the week before, but it was hidden somewhere in the porcelain.

He blew his breath into his lucky pitch pipe, mimicked the note, and sung out the wrinkled words on his paper to the teachers. They nodded or shook their heads or something – he lost his sense of sight for a moment, hoping it would increase his vocal sense.

Finally he was done and the teachers nodded and thanked him and told him to come back at the end of the day. He clung onto his pitch pipe and nearly squeezed the notes out of it. He wondered if sight or sound was more important.

 

\---

 

Axel invited him over to compete in one of his racing games. He chose a fancy red car that was likely beyond the salary of an artist, but Axel’s defense was that it was better to have a dream than to drive a cardboard box on an empty road.

The lack of sound could only last for so long, so Axel dropped his controller and swiped the pitch pipe out of Roxas’ mouth. “You’ll tarnish my gift if you slobber over it all day. What’s gotten you so down?”

“It didn’t work,” Roxas mumbled.

“The audition?” Axel paused the game and turned to his neighbor.

“Yeah. I just-” and he got so frustrated for some reason so he tried to let out some emotion by kicking the couch with his heel. “I don’t know. I didn’t get anything in the play. I’m not what they’re looking for.”

“Well,” Axel said, getting up to turn off the game console, “lots of people are oblivious to great talent. Tons of great artists and composers didn’t get famous until after they died.”

“What, so I have to die first? I’m sure they’d love to star a corpse in a high school play.” Roxas waved his arms, exasperated. “I’ll make millions and buy heaven.”

Axel, the jerk, laughed at him anyway and apologized by kissing him goodnight.

 

\---

 

Roxas had his fall and it was a pathetic fall, but it was still beautiful. The rush came back so intensely the next day that Demyx barged into Axel’s room and yelled at Roxas through their windows to come over and put his voice to good use. Kairi nearly had a heart attack when she came into Roxas’ room to discover her brother scaling the side of the house. Demyx tried to make it better by waving at her, but with little success. Kairi told Roxas she wouldn’t make a huge deal about it and it would be his fault if he didn’t come home in time to get the last piece of chocolate cake.

Axel dragged Roxas across the hall into Demyx’s room, where there were music sheets and assorted instruments making themselves at home on the floor. Demyx shoved a paper into his hands and demanded that he sing. Roxas sung with a guitar and piano and occasionally Xaldin and Xigbar when they wanted to make Demyx mess up, but Demyx would throw pencils at them with his toes so that he would not miss a beat.

Axel got that look in his eyes again and it was ever so beautiful. Roxas imagined what he would do when he bought heaven.


	4. four

It had only been so long but Roxas swore that Axel had recited every single poem known to man into his ear. If Roxas laughed, Axel would pinch his earlobe and if Roxas frowned or didn’t get it, Axel would launch into a detailed description of the art behind it, often making little sense. Even then, he did not mind at all.

Axel wrapped his arms around Roxas’ beating ribcage and rolled him on top of his chest. “You’ve been awfully lively lately.”

“So?” Roxas tangled his fingers into a mess of red hair and tugged.

“So, it’s good.” Axel helped loosen the knots in his hair to free Roxas’ fingers. “You were such a stone last year. I felt so proud when I could get a couple sentences out of you. Oh, how my heart ached back then.”

“No need to be dramatic.” Lately Roxas’ lips had a terrible habit of twitching upwards on one side.

Axel moved his hands along the boy’s sides and his fingers curled around the edge of Roxas’ shirt. “Artist thing. I can’t help it. Life would be boring, you know?”

“Really.” His spine curved to meet cold fingertips crawling up his back.

“Really,” Axel said before leaning up to bite a neck tendon. Roxas’ spine nearly collapsed. “And I really,” bite, “really,” lick, “love life right now,” and a kiss.

 

\---

 

Back when the world was a little brighter, Dad held onto Sora’s hand and Sora held onto Roxas’ hand. Mom would be behind them with their sisters, who were now old enough to use their own two feet and walk with them. The city seemed very big then and Roxas did not like how the shop windows were always a bit too high for him. Occasionally he would release Sora’s hand and run over to a window, jumping up on his small legs to see what treasures rested inside. Dad would briefly scold him for running off but Sora would take back his hand to let him know that it was okay.

It was a hot summer day and Roxas told Kairi that she would burst into flames if she stepped on a sidewalk crack. As the mean older brother, he had the right to push her onto a crack, and he did. She squealed in fear and when she realized her body was not ablaze, she punched him in the arm and ran back to Mom. Namine would hide behind her leg and hug Kairi to calm her down. Dad picked him up and gave the obligatory lecture that it wasn’t nice to abuse one’s sisters and Roxas should apologize. Dad was gentler that day because he carried a pair of yellow theater tickets in his shirt pocket.

Roxas plucked them from his pocket and held them up as if expecting the papers to fly toward the sun. “What are they, Daddy?”

“Tickets. I’m seeing a play tonight.”

“Is that the place where people pretend?”

“It’s where people get a second life.”

It took a while for Roxas to let them go because the tickets were glossy and reflected the sun onto the shop windows if he held them at the right angle.

 

\---

 

It had only been so long and still he knew very little. He knew that the world was still cold and the gentians below his window were still waiting for a life source so that they could sprout. He knew that art gave life and he knew that if he didn’t keep his window unlocked, Axel would breathe frost onto the glass and write inappropriate messages until Roxas finally opened them.

He knew that door locks were suddenly quite handy.

“I don’t know how you manage,” Axel said, waving around his strong hands. “Three siblings is way too much work.”

Roxas, shuffling music sheets on his desk, raised an eyebrow at him. “I take it you’re an only child?”

“Unless you count the lunatics with me next door. But yeah.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Heck, you four must be angels if your parents will let you in this house all alone,” Axel said, spinning Roxas’ chair around so that they were facing each other. Roxas gave him an annoyed look and Axel smirked back.

“Did I interrupt something?”

“I was organizing my music,” muttered Roxas, and would have muttered some more if Axel’s lips had not sucked up his words. Axel’s hands trailed up his arms and squeezed his shoulders. Roxas felt the room spin for a moment and saw the colors mix together.

 

\---

 

Gravity gave mercy.

In the beginning, it was as if Hermes fell from the clouds and bound the straps of his winged shoes onto his ankles. He was so light on the borrowed shoes that surely the rapid spin of the earth threatened to hurl him toward the sun. No wing-power could save him if he could not even find his own two feet. The shoes were golden and gilded like front-row theater tickets and just the same – usable only once, light and fluttering in the night wind after the thrill of the fun they brought.

Gravity gave mercy. He was now bound to the earth like marble, but breathing, thriving, so glad to be weighted down by snow and dead flowers. He could not be hurled to the fiery stars until his concrete soles were stolen and replaced with feather-light sandals once more.

But for now, gravity gave mercy.

 

\---

 

They were growing up and were now tall enough to see into the windows on the street. Kairi and Namine pointed excitedly at the frosted glass panels, making mental lists of glittery clothes and household accessories to get in the future. They could only point for so long, for the frost would nip at their fingers and force them to move on. Sora and Roxas, good brothers that they were, stood in the back on the icy sidewalk.

Sora was catching occasional snowflakes on his tongue. “They say spring’s gonna come sooner this year. Supposed to rain a lot next month.”

He thought of when Axel would go out to paint the first flowers. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“We might need another umbrella.” They moved up the street when their sisters migrated to the next window.

He thought of how typical it would be if it started raining once Axel started painting, but it was doubtful that anything would stop the artist. “And more tea.”

“Again?” Sora snorted. “You don’t get accepted for the school play and yet you’re singing more than anyone else in the cast.”

“The teacher suddenly gave me all these main parts for the next concert. Guess I’ve gotten better since then.” He looked at the pair of ruby-red rain boots to which Kairi was pointing and hoped Axel had his own pair or else he would catch a cold while painting the first flowers. He would never understand artists or why he was thinking about them so much lately. The rush between his ribs must have been pushing too much blood into his brain.

“Hey, look at that.” Now Sora was pointing to the frost, and upon looking through the icy barrier, Roxas saw a shiny clock on display next to an old child’s rocking chair and rusted harmonica. It was made out of an abalone shell with the tick marks and clock hands protruding out of the rainbow interior. Its color was dull and dusty behind the frosted window, but Roxas understood that Axel would say something about the hidden beauty underneath, the secret pulse in the middle that would come to life as Galatea did from a loving touch.

 

\---

 

When he climbed the trellis, there was a rainbow in the distance that appeared to connect their houses. He wanted to believe that everything was fate now, even if it did seem too convenient. His sisters were at Selphie’s, his brother was at Riku’s, he was alone in their tiny two-story house, so he braved the risk of catching a cold by walking over the soaked grass and gripping the wet trellis. Gravity let go just long enough for Axel to drag him inside and hang his dripping socks on a pair of hooks on the wall.

“Don’t you have boots?” Axel picked up his wet socks and made a face. “Or at least something waterproof.”

“We have a couple umbrellas, at least.” Roxas plopped down on Axel’s bed and immediately stole the covers to wrap around his frozen toes.

“That’s good enough, I guess.” Axel grabbed the window handles and frowned at the outside scenery. “Why must rainbows appear only after it rains?”

“The world isn’t that nice,” he replied, huddling further in the blankets. Axel shrugged and locked the window first and then the door. It wasn’t fair that Roxas nearly tripped over all the junk on Axel’s floor when he came inside, and yet Axel could sway through the mess of paints and canvases easily. Axel approached the bed and ruffled Roxas’ hair.

“How long can you stay?” he asked. Time was precious, after all.

Roxas tried not to sink too deeply into the covers. Leaving the room would be like backing out of a concert. “My siblings are gone, so…I can stay all night.”

Axel’s eyebrows raised slightly, the tattoos on his cheeks stretching at the movement. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, so...” It had been mentioned before. He pushed some of the covers away and wiggled his toes. No longer frozen. “Yeah. If-”

“Yeah, yes, sure,” said Axel, jumbling out his words while looking at the window and door a second time. “If you’re totally sure, too, and we won’t do everything all at once ‘cause I don’t wanna freak you out-”

“You won’t.” He moved the covers to the closest free space on the floor.

Axel gave a grin, one that was smoother than his usual ones. “That mean you trust me?”

Roxas’ lips twitched upward in reply. “A fellow artist? Hardly.”

“Cocky jerk.” Axel grabbed Roxas’ cheeks between his fingers and tugged them until Roxas slapped his hands away and pulled their frozen bodies down to the mattress.

 

\---

 

He was growing up and wanted to keep up with the earth’s spin. To him, Atlas no longer held the globe stationary on his back. Gravity pulled it away and kept it going in fast revolutions around the blinding sun. He could only be fixed in one spot for so long until erosion from the wind picked away at his concrete soles and whirled him off the soil. He needed a pair of hands, stronger than those of Atlas, to keep him rooted.

He did not know if it started raining or stopped raining or the rainbow disappeared that night. For a moment he did not care if the grass around his house was soaked even further or if his socks would never dry. It was the feeling that he had always craved, the feeling of satisfaction, fulfillment in his once-porcelain-now-marble veins, the feeling of Axel’s fingertips that had dried touches of blue paint around the fingernails. The touch of those hands removing clothes and adding blankets underneath, the electrifying shock that caused him to toss his head back and see mixed colors, so many colors that the rainbow would have envy if it were still outside.

Axel, ever the artist, studied his body well, memorizing each wave of skin as it rippled over a bone or light muscle and each blue reflection that emerged from the shadows. Roxas was no pen-and-paper artist, but knew enough to recognize the beauty of Axel’s blue-tinted hands embracing everything about him – his eyes to his lips to his beating chest to his knees to his warmed feet.

He could only describe so much when Axel kept stealing his faint words from his mouth, and what little he knew told him that descriptions would never recreate the exact scene. He savored what he could, the jolts, the heated jerks his body made without his mind’s permission, Axel pouring words into his flushed ears as Roxas slid sweaty thighs along bony hips to keep up with Axel rubbing them together, to keep up with the world, to keep up with life.

They fell like Icarus into the cooling ocean once the heat became too much. The rush in his chest finally began to slow but did not disappear. He remembered more words, the tickling heat of a wet cloth soothing his eyes to close, and blue-tinted hands curling their bodies together between the sheets.

 

\---

 

Gravity gave mercy.

 

\---

 

Roxas awoke to the sound of crashing coming from below. It took him a moment to register the bed covers and hands around him that were not his own, and he jumped a little.

“Shh,” a sleepy voice muttered behind him. He was pulled back against a chest and felt lips dance along the back of his neck. There was a beating there, too. “S’ just Xigbar and Xaldin making breakfast again.”

“You sure?” He settled against Axel’s chest and winced at the following clashes.

“They’re just having fun.” Axel rolled him over and stole his mouth once more. “Hmm. Morning, beautiful.”

“Morning.” – and he liked the feeling of being trapped between Axel’s beating ribcage.

 

\---

 

Ages ago, he held his father’s hand as they walked through carpeted aisles to find their velvet seats for his first play.

Years ago, the world got complicated and their mom found a tiny two-story house for them to grow up, just until things made sense again.

Not too long ago, he thought his baritone voice was good enough and indeed it was.

The day before, gravity gave mercy and let all of his blood run through his marble veins freely.

The day after, he walked back to his house with a bag of tea boxes in his hand, and saw the first flowers of an early spring greet him.

It did not occur to him that usually the gentians on his windowsill were the first to bloom, but gravity had given mercy and tragically took that thought away.


	5. five

“ _Gloria_.” He sighed, sinking deeper into Axel’s arms and beating ribcage. He spared the effort to raise his lucky pitch pipe and produce a C. “ _Gloria..._ ”

“Elbows. Ouch.” Axel squirmed, trying to get rid of the pointy joints, and found a more comfortable position with Roxas laying on top of his chest. He wrapped them tighter between the sheets because although it was springtime, it was unusually cold. The gentians on Roxas’ trellis had yet to bloom.

“Hipbones,” Roxas complained in return. Axel huffed and moved them on their sides, facing each other so that he could feel Roxas’ hair under his chin.

“Better?”

“Better.” He squeezed the pitch pipe one last time before reaching over Axel and tossing it on the floor. It bounced on the wood with a hollow whistle and rolled until it hit a wall. Axel poked his stomach, huffing once more.

“Hey, careful with the fancy gifts. I could either spoil you or blow everything on art supplies.”

“You do a little of both already.” Roxas tilted his head up, capturing a pair of smirking lips. He pulled back, hoping he would be followed, but instead, Axel ruffled his hair and turned over.

“Reminds me. Almost forgot.” He let his hand roam under the bed and turned back over once he found his prize. He cradled the object carefully, setting it between them. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Roxas’ ears suddenly shut off Axel’s voice and concentrated solely on the ticks of the clock between them, the very abalone shell clock that Sora pointed out behind the frost a while ago; the very one that was once dusty but now wiped clean from its timely filth. At first sight, his eyes only saw the vibrant colors locked within the shell, but then his eyelids closed and he heard nothing but three beatings in one room, three sweet beatings, beatings, beatings...

 

\---

 

He was getting so very close to his dream, close enough to see it through the millions of other dreams in the night sky. He liked to think that his star was the brightest because he felt so much bigger than the world itself – so big that gravity was in his control and not in the hands of the other planets and stars. Jupiter had failed – it could not get big enough with enough storms to turn into a star, but he – he succeeded where Jupiter did not. If he leaped off the soil, he would not lose his pathway like before. Everything was in his control: his voice, his eyes, his ears, the shining reflection from the abalone shell clock in his room that presented him a picture of power each day.

He felt immortal and invincible, he would succeed where the gods did not, he would buy heaven, and gravity would always, always give mercy in his footsteps.

 

\---

 

“How come you haven’t painted flowers yet? It’s been spring for a while.”

“I want to paint the gentians this year.”

Roxas pushed himself up from his bed, almost in sync with the abalone shell clock but not quite. “Really?”

“Of course. They’re nice flowers.” Axel joined him, pushing their bodies to the mattress. “And I kind of bought too much blue paint. It gives me an excuse to use some of it.”

“Sure.” Axel leaned down to kiss him and the room fell quiet except for the ticking of the clock that appeared to be reaching some infinite number in time. Roxas spared a quick glance toward his door, checking that the lock was secured.

“Roxas, Roxas,” Axel breathed into his lungs. He pulled away, let Roxas drag him back for another kiss, and pulled away again with a smirk. “Hold on. I wanna draw you.”

“That’s all you do,” he said, tugging on Axel’s shirt.

“Yes – no, I meant...” Axel sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking away. Roxas pulled their bodies closer.

“What I meant is,” said Axel, returning his gaze, “I want to do a nude drawing of you.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” He rubbed Axel’s back. “You could have just said it the first time.”

“Didn’t wanna embarrass you.”

Roxas later discovered his words to be true, for every time he looked at Axel, he had to close his eyes. They arranged the pillows to stretch out Roxas’ torso and curve his whole spine, revealing a prominent ribcage. His arms were bent above his head and his hips were twisted away to expose the waves of his skin as it stretched down his legs. He felt as if he would break in half if the beatings in his chest got any bigger. Axel’s gaze was sometimes too deep, so Roxas closed his eyes and drank in the sounds of a quick pencil and a slowly ticking clock.

He stayed in the position long enough to fall asleep, and was gently poked awake an hour later. He swatted at the annoying hand, though missed due to sleepiness.

Axel only gave him five seconds to look at the drawing before he jumped onto the bed and kicked off the pillows.

 

\---

 

Gravity gave mercy.

 

\---

 

“How about this,” Sora proposed, waving around a fork-full of lettuce and spraying droplets of dressing onto the table, “we take a road trip to the countryside. Way out of the city limits with only a hundred munny in our pockets.”

“I am not traveling broke for two months nor am I traveling in a car with Riku in it for two months,” Roxas countered.

Sora frowned at his twin and tapped his fork on his plate. “I never said you had to go. You guys can take your summer classes while I have _fun_. I wanna get out of here for a bit and see the world.”

Kairi snorted. “Mom would throw a fit. And are you forgetting that you and Riku don’t have licenses or cars?”

“Little details, Kairi. We’ll figure it out, you see.”

“Sure.” And Roxas tried to hide his eyes under his potatoes but his sister had a terrifying talent of finding and reading them. “You’re only going to do theater classes all summer?”

“I – I haven’t really thought that far,” he said. He hadn’t been thinking much lately because the abalone shell clock kept him in a brainless and steady rhythm. It was almost like dependency. “I guess I should.”

Namine swept the tip of her finger around the edge of her glass, revolving it like a moon around a planet. “The sooner you start on your future, the better.”

 

\---

 

Axel didn’t have white sheets because paint loved to stain whatever it could, so he had deep green sheets instead: a vivid and lively spring green. It reminded Roxas how unusually cold it was and how few flowers there were.

Roxas complained about how it was too chilly to do another drawing, but now he always gave in to art. He sat on the bed, leaning on an arm to reveal a collarbone. They talked lightly, about Sora’s last soccer match and Demyx’s latest composition, until Roxas moved an arm to ease an itch on his nose. He nearly jumped out of his position when Axel made a noise.

“Don’t _do_ that,” he said, furiously erasing a line in his sketchpad. “And I was totally getting this down. Try not to move; I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” Roxas turned back passively, but swore he heard the ground move without him for a moment.

 

\---

 

His latest dream was a little bright, perhaps a bit silly, but he was invincible and unstoppable now. He could do whatever he wanted.

In this one, he was at graduation, standing in line in front of Sora to receive his diploma. He had a month to bask in the glory of freedom before transferring to city life. By that time, the world would no longer be complicated. Axel wouldn’t be able to attend his graduation, but he would be waiting in an apartment between the city and the country. Not too far for him to go to the theater, not too close for Axel to be disturbed by the constant sounds of cars and stomping feet. Axel would see his shows twice as he promised and afterwards, they would go out for a drink so Axel could brag about how he was going to do a portrait of someone famous. Their apartment would have nine sets of silverware to accommodate siblings and college friends, a music room with a piano because Roxas would learn by then, an art room that Axel could call a professional studio, and a bedroom that would still have vivid green sheets.

Roxas often woke from that dream from the clock’s alarm, and the words _only a month_ would not leave his thoughts within the beats.

 

\---

 

They ran out together from the school, their steps lighter from the thought that summer was supposed to approach soon. Roxas took Namine’s hand and twirled her around on the pavement, making sure to avoid the cracks so no one’s back was broken.

“ _Magnificat_ ,” he sung to her graceful steps, and she bowed. Kairi grabbed him in a rib-shattering hug and Sora dug a fist into his head. They were set.

He nearly ran back to their tiny house, excited to call his mom and tell her the news, but also to spread the word to the one who knew art best. Maybe, if they were lucky, spring had kicked in and the gentians were finally beginning to bud.

“Axel,” he said breathlessly, almost too much because he had to cough to regain his voice within all his panting from running. He leaned against the windowsill for a moment, giving himself time to calm down and look serious so Axel would stop smirking at him as if he already knew. “Summer class – three weeks – in the city’s theater.”

“Trying to tell me you auditioned for a spot and won?”

Roxas looked up, nodding. “Right.”

He smiled and waited. He spent a little extra time just standing and sweating and waiting for a response, but Axel only nodded along and smiled too.

He realized it. Suddenly, Axel had no words for him.

 _Only a month left_ , but that was three weeks ago.

 

\---

 

The path before him was swept into gray dust.

Hermes sliced off his ankles and stole back his winged shoes. Atlas emerged from underneath and reclaimed his right to control the movement of the earth. Icarus’ wax wings melted and together, they fell into the sea with the sun blazing liquid fire along their bodies. Perhaps that sun was actually Jupiter, who finally found what it needed to become a true star.

Sleep graced him with a heart-stopping dream that night, and he thought he heard ribs crack and vessels explode underneath a roll of black rubber and black cement with scarlet blood turning gray in puddles of rainbow oil. Roxas awoke, his lungs bursting with icy water. He turned to his clock, listening for its endless ticking that echoed from the shell’s reflections, the beatings, beatings, beat-

 

\---

 

Gravity let go.

 

\---

 

Axel’s room was dark the next night, but that was okay. The neighbors liked to go out often, and sometimes Roxas would accompany them, but Axel having a night just with his college friends was always lovely.

The next day, the room was dark and empty again, and when Roxas tried to call, nothing answered. He huffed at the phone, a little miffed that Axel would take off on a little trip without informing him, but he could forgive that little mishap.

Third try’s a charm and on the third day, he had enough of his voice wasting away in the empty room, being swallowed by cold paint tubes and cold, vivid green sheets instead of something beating.

It made sense, he supposed, when Xaldin arrived at his doorstep after three days of an empty room that no longer had someone to swallow the echoes of his singing. It made sense that the throbbing in his veins turned back into stone, that he thought he could be the key to everything in his life; to keep it locked in a marble chest that could still breathe long after his own death, because art was supposed to be eternal and it didn’t make sense why artists could not also be eternal. He only wished that it wasn’t Xaldin – someone with less of a frown would have been nice, but maybe Demyx was too busy strumming sad songs on his guitar for the past three days to build up the courage to tell the news. At least Xaldin was considerate enough to bow his head a bit while reliving the details.

Although Roxas had more questions in his head than possible, he simply nodded his head along like a doll, thanked Xaldin for the information and the card with a date and place and time, slammed the door and collapsed against it until Sora came home and helped him back on his feet. His nerves were in such a state of shock that he flinched at the touch of air and his hands refused to be still. Eating and singing and brushing teeth became a chore and classes were up in the clouds, along with his dusty pathway. It was so much easier to stay in bed or pace in front of his window because he was downright convinced that it was one of fate’s cruel jokes, but that would be too convenient. It left him ill prepared.

He tried to explain the situation to his twin the best way he could using as little details as possible. He said it was one of the neighbors next door with whom he often hung out. Sora gave him a strange look at his jumbled explanation of why they had to go see their neighbor on a Sunday and why Roxas needed help fixing his tie and shoelaces because his hands shouldn’t have been shaking that much if they were just going to see a neighbor. Kairi and Namine also gave worried looks at Roxas’ state and had to remind him to brush his hair before they left.

The hill was nice enough and the day was at least bright enough to be considered a spring afternoon. The people could have been happier and flowers could have smelled better, but for a hasty gathering, it was all he could ask. Namine had to slap his hand away from the red carnation in his black jacket pocket or else the petals would drop.

They sat in the second row, behind Axel’s friends and relatives. Roxas kept his head down, deathly scared of seeing anyone with connections to Axel, like his parents, who might have been the sobbing woman and morose man in the front and center. For a moment Roxas wondered what they would say if he approached them and told them how their son altered his life in such a way that he would never be able to return the amount of his gratitude, but the shame was too great. Everyone knew Axel and him, but no one knew them together.

After an eternity’s worth of sunlight burning the back of his neck, the great, long box was carried down the aisle. Roxas turned away and saw Xigbar bury his face in his hands. The box approached the decorated table and landed with a soft, hollow clunk. Slowly, people began to observe it, one by one in an orderly line, to delve in the artistic piece one last time before it was sealed in its own museum. Roxas was behind Kairi and in front of Sora, who led him to the opened box. Kairi spent little time staring and Sora looked down. Roxas tried to spare a brief glance at the statue, but his eyes and ears locked onto the place inside the box, where there was a ribcage so crushed and fractured from a car’s metal impact that revealing it would only make people realize that this marble chest was still.

It wasn't until the box was closed and brought down to the giant hole in the hill that Roxas felt a pinch in his side. A jab occurred in his stomach when the people lowered the box into the hole for what seemed like a frozen amount of time. Something burst behind his eyes and a knife came from behind and ripped open his lungs. His marble veins were back to porcelain, and the shards wormed their way between his ribs. Roxas coughed, thinking that the blinding pain in his guts and the ringing in his ears would let go if he let out all the blood filling his stomach, but the rush was too great for him to go back.

When Axel’s box landed in the hole with the same clunk as before, Roxas’ interior finally collapsed at the weight of his flesh. He fell to his knees, covering his face, crying out hoarsely, barely noticing his siblings’ hands on his shoulders. Gravity had let go.

 

\---

 

The next week was nothing but a blur of paints. Roxas distantly remembered Sora helping him into Demyx’s car and him clinging onto something until it was red. Something about the front steps and him collapsing in front of the damn door again and his siblings helping him fall asleep on his damp pillow that night. He slept for however many hours because he hid the abalone shell clock, woke up briefly to greet his sisters who had skipped school to watch over him, then breakfast consisting of untoasted bread and back to bed for another however many hours. He went into the kitchen when Sora came home but escaped with a glass of water, three boxes of tissues, and a few medicine capsules because maybe his runny nose and puffy eyes were nothing but a bloody cold in the middle of spring.

He could only grieve for so long before returning to school the next week. He almost hoped that people would regard him in the hallways with a pat on the shoulder or a sad nod, but still, no one knew. The unfulfilled wishes and promises made in winter and spring stopped the blissful throbbing in his veins. He was back to stone, no more a living Galatea for his creator. He could no longer wear his own skin.

He was losing it, he knew. Humans were supposed to be funny in that they let things go easily, and then they forget about them. The ticking abalone clock was gone now, and he had no pre-set rhythm to guide him. He would have to start over.

Two weeks later, he was still pacing. His steps were now rigid, going stiffer and stiffer and he changed back to stone with a fragile, porcelain interior. The curtains were still drawn but the window had yet to be opened. He was frightened at the thought of both closing the curtains and opening the window. Doing either would be a sign of his surrender to reality.

“Roxas,” he heard from the doorway. Sora stepped in cautiously, a hint of determination in his face. “Dinner’s ready.”

He slowed his pace, wanting to say awful things to his own flesh and blood in hopes that it would make him and the world understand. He wanted to drop to his knees and confess, to lock the door and swallow the key to everything, to scream his anger out because if love killed people, then surely hate would save them.

Instead, he stood still. “I’ll come down in a minute.”

He didn’t bother making sure that Sora had left. He walked over to the window and undid the latches. They creaked at him for being untouched for two weeks, and Roxas hoped they would forgive him.

He pushed the panes out and let in a fresh gust of late-spring breeze. The room across had been arranged slightly, missing a few things here and there, but was still cluttered with canvases and drying paintbrushes. He forced himself to look a few seconds longer before turning away. Overall, nothing had changed. There were no longer any beatings in the room or in his chest. Perhaps it was a mistake to lock his own beatings in someone else’s chest.

He collapsed onto the windowsill and suddenly got a handful of silk.

He looked over the edge and noticed a large collection of blue gentians on his trellis, large and bright from two weeks’ worth of growing.


	6. epilogue

Perhaps I owe myself an explanation.

It’s been about three years since then and the only thing that has changed is that the world finally makes sense again. It gave me the chance to move to the city and join the theater just as I wanted, except I didn’t get my suburb apartment with the package deal. I live a block away from the theater, have five sets of silverware for whenever my family comes over to see the plays, and have light blue sheets because they were on sale. I can’t complain about my living situation. Nothing’s perfect but it’s good enough for me.

Getting here seemed so terribly easy, but perhaps that’s because my mind was fuzzy until I graduated from high school. I remember a blur for several months, then some clarity, and finally everything was back to normal once I grabbed my diploma. Humans are funny in that they don’t let go of things easily, and then they forget and move on with no memory trail left behind. Sometimes I wish it were the same for me, but that would not have been a life worth living.

Here’s a better explanation. My words are rare and I get everything from a script. You’d think I would be better at this, but the day when Axel didn’t come back and the gentians bloomed outside my window, I lost years worth of words. It’s amazing that I still know how to open my jaw to recite my lines on the stage, but that comes naturally as an artist. Artists never say what they mean, so it’s better for someone to write words for me.

I don’t say this very often, but I feel this must be known. That night, Axel was out alone, coming back from the art shop. We know this because there was a bag filled with blue paint tubes scattered on the street. Blue, of course, because apparently he saw my gentians the moment they bloomed and he began painting them behind my back. He went out to purchase more blue, but it was dark and it was a time when the world didn’t make sense. He was killed by a car.

Despite my failing mentality at the time, I still demanded to know the details, wrenching them out of poor Demyx when I barged into his house a few days after the funeral. I listened to each nitty-gritty detail that the police and investigators and whoever the hell else was present discovered on the site and in the hospital. He was hit right in the chest; his stomach, intestines, and lungs burst on impact. Apparently, a few rib bones penetrated his insides here and there, causing his whole torso to collapse in a hot, bubbly pile that steamed on the pavement. I didn’t bother to ask about how his heart did in all this mess, and I didn’t really care. For all I knew, his entire being turned into marble that night.

Now for how I dealt with all this. I had some turbulent weeks of nearly ruining my relationships with my siblings, and all the screaming and violence could have been so easily solved if I had just dropped down to my knees and confessed why the loss of some neighbor was so important. You’d also think that this whole thing would leave me alone because Axel and I weren’t together for that long, but I truly believed that he saved my life. I was growing up and I didn’t want to because there was nothing left for me out there. All I had was a decent voice that lacked the understanding of how to make it a great voice – one that wouldn’t simply wash away underneath the crowd and rot in the dirt. I truly believed I was blessed, but now? I just had a stroke of luck. I never imagined a life without him, but here I am, living this unimaginable existence, feeding off my own inspiration – originally with the intention of eating myself away, but that never worked.

Perhaps now an explanation on how I made it here. Axel died near summer, just at the end of the school year. It made it all the more difficult to complete that year, but Sora had hammered it into my head that he wouldn’t forgive me if I gave up so easily. Kairi got my focus back on my studies and Namine gave me creative words, not quite the same as Axel’s, but she was also a rising artist so I could understand her points the best.

That summer, Demyx called me over. We went through Axel’s room, picking out what could be forgotten, what could be given away, and what could be kept. His parents wanted most of his remaining art to either keep or sell for display. Maybe Axel would turn into all those other artists who made their names big only when they reached heaven.

We picked lightly at the objects in his room, which were covered in dust. Demyx thought about turning the room into a library – at least something to fill it up so that it would seem less hollow.

“How about this,” he said, grabbing my attention. I stopped staring at the green sheets. Our voices echoed easily in the room, so we spoke in shallow whispers. “Let’s move all his artwork into the hallway and then collect up anything else his parents might want on his bed.”

I didn’t say anything; just nodded and began moving the stacks of canvases leaning against a wall. Back then, I had a fear of using my voice at all. I thought something would tear my vocal chords out if I spoke, then slide down my throat and harvest something sickly and terrible in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to avoid as much thinking as possible.

Most of the room consisted of art, so we had to make some piles in Demyx’s room across the hallway. I was rummaging through the closet when I found them and, in a shocked state of mind, I panicked and hurried to collect the pieces before someone found out and forced me to my knees.

Just my dried-up luck when I stumbled into Demyx outside the door. I couldn’t hide my guilty face nor the bundle of artwork in my hands.

“Which ones are those?” he asked, and in my head, I dropped down and revealed everything to the blue sky.

In reality, I simply turned the papers around to show him exactly what Axel and I were keeping behind everyone’s backs. The spice of a relationship, the kind of secret that had us giggling underneath green sheets whenever we pulled them over our heads so that it was completely dark and hidden inside. And it wasn’t really even that surprising or scandalous – just a collection of drawings of me, looking out the window, or wrapped in a sheet like a Greek god, or wrapped in nothing but my own flesh. Demyx raised an eyebrow at them, but said nothing because perhaps all his words went with Axel, too. Instead, he directed me to the hallway and pulled out a canvas from the pile.

Demyx and I made it our own secret to take whatever art pieces we wanted before handing them forever to his parents. I took all the ones of me, selfishly, along with the canvas that featured a trellis of freshly bloomed blue gentians and a window. In the window was an outline of a mouth, a pair of hunched shoulders, and an arm dangling outside with a pitch pipe in hand. On the backside was something smudged in pencil. Those words must have gone with him as well. It would have been nice to know what the pencil smudges originally said, but that would have been too convenient. I decided to stop believing in the idea of destiny, to stop thinking that the smudges were supposed to be a message strong enough to make my blood boil in my heart, but humans are funny in that their habits are hard to break.

I’ve given my explanation, so back to the present day. I’m building up a decent name here – yet not so big that the unstable pressures of movies and reputations swamp me. I like it like this. People say that I’m better than I know, and I believe them. I can make a living, but I can’t make enough gold to buy heaven. Axel once told me that artists never find satisfaction in their work, and it can be tiresome, but I can’t fathom a life that has a definite goal and stops once that goal is obtained. My work will never be done here, whether or not I like it.

Here’s where everyone else is. Sora got what he wanted in soccer and can now be seen playing with the city’s team. Kairi and Namine are in a university outside the city limits, testing their math and writing skills. Surely they will land with big-time jobs in an even bigger city. I immediately tried out for the theater once I finished high school and they say my slick, baritone voice won them over. By then, I had learned to form enough words to lead me to where I wanted to be.

Simple as that. There are complications here and there, but Axel was enough complication for a century. Perhaps now an explanation of where he is now.

Last week I visited his marble stone. I do this often, more than a sane person should, but as I said when I first visited the area, the hill is nice, breezy, usually sunny despite how often it rains here now. The description has his name, a saturated saying, and a pair of dates. In the beginning, the marble was innocently white, so white that it angered me, but the stone faded to grey as my rage vanished. In the beginning, I imagined how his body would decompose. They say that the eyes are the first to go, so I always began with the image of green drying out and sinking into the skull. His collapsed torso would bloat and his remaining organs would turn into sludge. His skin would melt and he would rot in his marble cavern. It was all very twisted, but now I am certain that he is nothing more but white bone, so I can no longer picture his gruesome demise.

I cannot say much about what Axel would be doing now. I have very few beliefs, and the ones I had as a child are gone. It would be nice to meet again, to see each other on blue clouds or in a meadow. I don’t care which one I get. I don’t care about saving up to buy heaven. They say that a singer’s voice should be strong enough to echo everywhere. For now, I’ll imagine that my singing sends earthquakes in the ground and in the sky.

Not too long before Axel died, he told me a secret between his green sheets when we were side-by-side with our hands aligned. He leaned over slightly to brush his lips on my ear, and said that blue gentians were supposed to mean saddened love. I shook my head to deny it, but out of all the secrets between Axel and I, that is the only one I cannot keep.


End file.
